The CDS is high up in the chain of command, distributing orders to commanders as they come in from above. But I wouldn't want his job any more than the PUS's--that's what the call it--who is personally answerable to Parliament for all matters money and has to keep the books balanced in ways that would make the average accountant shudder.

On the budgetary level, MoD is every bit as byzantine
as a great, big, byzantine thing. Despite their flowcharts and efficiency models, which make things a lot better than they could be, MoD still has to move billions of pounds around each year, and there are plenty of committees, boards, and agencies responsible for it. But I've gone as far with it as a non-British civilian can be asked.

At Their Command

The modern world is by and large--for the time being--not one of large-scale conventional warfare. The role of MoD has changed with the reduction of its size and mission following the end of the Cold War, when Western nations the world over were stuck with all these nuclear weapons and no one to point them at.

But they can still whoop some ass almost anywhere in the world. Here's how many will come, if you invite them:

Since the collapse of the Cold War, the MoD has seen a decrease in its expense budget, and an accordant decrease in its size. That does not, of course, mean that they're sitting about drumming their collective trigger-fingers.

Hardly. The MoD is a huge organization, operating on countless levels and in numerous ways. I have not even touched on home defense in this writeup, and encourage others to continue filling the subject heading. It's truly immense. Suffice to say that, as large as it is, the United Kingdom's ranks 5th--or did, in 1999--in the world for defense spending, writing checks for eight times less than the United States, which came in at 260,000,000,000 pounds.